Saturday, December 30, 2006

This Day in Music History: The Beatles and Hello Goodbye

On this day in music history Hello Goodbye by the Beatles was the #1 song on the charts and would stay there for 3 weeks in the USA. In England it was #1 for 7 weeks and tied From Me to You as their longest chart-topping record.Paul wrote the song while they were producing their TV movie and soundtrack Magical Mystery Tour. It was not suppose to be part of the soundtrack but part of it is heard at the end.While some have just seen this as an up-tempo pop record, others have read into it a little bit more. This came about during the time that people were starting to say that Paul is really dead and was replaced by a double named Billy Shears. They said that Paul is the main character in the song and he doesn’t know that he is dead. Paul is saying hello to his three friends and they are saying goodbye. Thus come the lines in the song “You say goodbye but I say hello…I don’t know why you say goodbye. I say hello.”While many TV shows and movies can help make a hit record Hello Goodbye apparently didn’t need any help. Magical Mystery Tour was shown on December 26 1967 in England and critics hated it. It was so bad that it was not shown in the USA for years. When it was it only showed up in art theaters. To the best of my knowledge it is the only Beatles movie that has never been shown on American television. With no help from the film the song became the 15th #1 song on the Billboard charts in the USA for the Beatles.